


The Deep Library's Repairs Workshop (previously named Exe Bindery)

by Milouchkna



Series: The Deep Library's Repairs Workshop [1]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2019-01-01 00:32:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12144633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milouchkna/pseuds/Milouchkna
Summary: The Deep Library has a new Binder of Books.





	The Deep Library's Repairs Workshop (previously named Exe Bindery)

 

**The New Binder of Books**

* * *

The Deep Library has existed since long before the University ever did. The Exe Bindery, as it was warmly called among its ancient staff, is even older. Some legends say the first largely known books were badly made copies of Exe Bounded books.

Although now most of the minor repairs can be (and are) handled by the librarians and circulation staff, more extensively damaged books are left into a particular corner of the library. It can be found on the first floor of the Deep Library, between two sections that are like day and night. It is said the Repairs Workshop's staff likes to go into the quiet of the night to come and take the damaged books left on the floor, just at the corner that borders the two sections. The librarians try to leave them to their own devices as much as they can once books are put there. All-too-dangerous manuscripts, cooked-and-burnt-to-a-crisp grimoires, previously-lost-and-newly-found artefacts, as-fragile-as-dust tomes, long-forgotten non-bound leaves, oil steeped cookbooks, and strictly-forbidden mouldy arcanest volumes are also left in their cares. Some are shelved in their own Workshop. Others are brought to be eaten by the Bookwyrm, a few are digitalized, even fewer are compiled and copied into fac-similes.

The staff of the Repairs Workshop is free to go as they please. Usually. They do not even have nametags and are often few in numbers. In recent decades, this number dwindled as years passed.

Some times ago, there was an incident that disappeared all of the remaining staff of the Repairs Workshop.

The Deep Library took upon their  shelves to look for new staff, and even handled the repairs for a while, by sending out a few strangely formed thoughts and not-so-fictional characters and creatures into the workshop. They asked a reference librarian they knew to put out a piece of code on the dark net. Who told them you could find anything in there? Either way, they set the code to evolve on its own. And then they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Until she arrived.

 

* * *

 

She had bypassed all the protocols and security measures of the never-seen before firewall that she had found deeply embedded in the dark net's code itself. At this exact moment, she found herself transported before a virtual door with the symbol of infinity into a zero at its center, door that she promptly opened.

A big somewhat smiling eye of a cat appeared out of thin air in her vision field.

The Deep Library, for the first time in a very, very long time, sighted. "THREAD LIGHTLY, CHILD," they voiced in a low growl, the words echoing throughout all the Library.

And thread lightly, she did. Well, in a sense: her own.

Defying all protocols, common and uncommon senses, she decided to advance barefoot, with no silver nor iron on her person, thinking it'd only serve to weigh her down. As far as salt goes, she had none in her pockets, for the same reason and she only wore black silk clothing.

She had read a great deal of books before but none could taste and smell as uniquely as the ones found here. In her endless hunt for knowledge, she had worn down books so quickly in her childhood and adolescence that she had decided to learn how to better care and handle them and even going as far as learning how to properly bind and restore them, later on.

She knew her trade at great lengths after a decade or so of work, but when confronted to the books of the Deep Library, she had to put her hunt of reading for knowledge on pause, focusing only on reading the reports of the Repairs Workshop.

The Reports told of all the kinds of repairs done on all the kinds of books. Not only that, there was also tales of ways of binding books the Exe Binders had to come up with, to secure leaves the Old Folks left behind, for relatively safe reading.

Then she immerged herself in work, having settled her workplace in one of the deepest floors, just above the cave of Bookwyrm, that she had quickly befriended, just like the other creatures of the Deep Library. She regularly went copying bits of prose and poetry off the giant Bookwyrm's skin, onto stable parchments for her own personal archives.

She was given more freedom than any of the previous staff of the Workshop. Eventually, the librarians and day pages of floors above started spreading rumours about her.

Rumours reached Circulation's ears quickly and, for once, she decided to see what was all the fuss about and to meet her . Only to constantly bicker with her about her bypassing and breaking every rule, protocol and security measure.

 

* * *

 

**Circulation's heated relationship with the New Binder [this is set quite a while after their first meeting]**

 

* * *

 

 

You've seen yourself that she always breaks the rules and protocols. No matter what you tell her. Which infuriates you, because these are here for a reason. Security, most of all. The health of the librarians, the security staff, the pages, the Other Librarians, the Bookwyrm, the creatures of the library and the rest of the staff, as well as the Library itself and its books is paramount to you. And her blatant disregard could cause a catastrophe...

You've also noticed that the rumours are true.

Some of the rumours went :

            – "If you hear her steps coming towards you and your pace quickens away, she's bound to find you." This one particularly applies in your case. Her steps, despite her being barefoot, have a very distinctive ring to it. Maybe because of the blue fungi trail she leaves behind? Maybe because of her limp? Maybe it is just because she has inherited the Repairs Workshop and, as such, always have to carry books everywhere she goes? Either way, you could always hear her steps well before you even saw her. And some times, your subconscious wants to get away from the steps. You do not know why, but something screams danger in your head and your feet follows the other way. But, no matter how far away you get, she always finds you. She often asks you to accompany her for a bit. She seems to enjoy your presence and talks of her work. And leaves you some of the books she repaired recently. You tell her it's not exactly your job as Circulation Manager to re-shelve them but you nonetheless take them. She tells you to read them. You argue.

You learn much later she only asks you.

            – "If you find yourself lost, you must absolutely never follow in her glowing footsteps. Only their echoes." Sometimes, you get lost on your round of the deep floors and, usually, you just have to follow your intuition. But this time you couldn't find your way back. So, just this once, your curiosity got the last shred of self-control you'd otherwise hold on to and you decided to follow her a bit. The glowing footsteps were drawing you, enticing you, inviting you to ever get closer. Which nearly got you eaten by tiny fungi. The glowing blue had somehow stopped at your left foot, the silver and iron rings worn at the ankles clinking against each other, the sounds of which saved you and also woke you up.

            Another rumour is more worrying, in its tone taken by the ones spreading it.

– "She's a Tongue Twister." 

You ask some of the Fair Folks you're friendly enough with what is it, having never once heard the expression applied in such a way towards a human before. No one answers you. All seem to blankly stare at you when they hear the question. When you look at them carefully, you detect a faint fear in their quick glances towards each other.

You try to investigate further and only are met with this wall of stares and glances. The Gentry genuinely fear her. When asked, the Binder also stares at you, seemingly not understanding.

At first, you push a little but, seeing as she and the Gentry both don't want to talk about it, you leave it alone after a while.

Until you overhear Fair Folks whispering:

\- "She took a bet with us and won it all, you know?

\- I hear you can't even bet with her in a game of words.

\- You shouldn't make a contract with her either. Or even talk to her at all.

\- Dirty, dirty, human Tongue Twister."

This only serves to make you more curious and you come to her and ask her directly about the bet. A deep sadness overcomes the Binder's face. She gets angry, snaps at you, telling you, "You shouldn't have. No! You shouldn't!" On an impulse, you take her in your arms and you try to comfort her. After a moment, she calms herself and tells you that "yes, well before coming to Elsewhere University, she took a big gamble, knowledge for knowledge, in a double game of cards and words that the Gentry are so keen to play with us humans."

"I wasn't expecting much, two of the ones I was playing against were known for their outrageous cheating, even among the Gentry. Against all odds, I won everything the other players had. I was immediately called out a Tongue Twister by these two. They were jealous I won the Universal Tongue, which would've permitted them to cheat even more. So, for a while, I just travelled around, because it gave me the ability to speak any language. But, like with almost everything, it left me bored. So I stopped using it, except for reading. Ever since I've been here, I can feel the Gentry fear me. But I didn't know any of the rumours. Until you came along. I guess the rumours must've been spread by the Twins, who didn't seem to understand why I hadn't used it to cheat."

She's been said to be mute before but you know better: she ever rarely feel the need to speak with her own voice, getting by using signs language instead. You are one of the very select few she speaks with. She has an ever changing sweet coarse voice.

As time passes, you come to fall for her, to love her even. When finally you tell her as much, she quickly turns towards you, spinning on her feet. "Me too." A grin appears on both your faces.

After an umpteenth argument about protocols and rules that just left the both of you somehow bitter, you ask, out of deep concern, why she doesn't wear silver or iron, or even just salt. "You must understand," starts a hushed voice, "I _have_ to thread lightly." A haunting pause then, "Or Else...." You get it immediately. "Or Else..." Yes. "Or Else..." You understand it all too well. "Or Else..." The Deep Library had made an Unspoken Contract with her as well. "Or Else..." Just like you.


End file.
